It saddens me to read the endless bad experiences that people have. I have been plodding along for three years and have no idea if my work is up to PhD standards even though I had regular meetings with sup and pubblished papers.

Its sad that there is no strong structure in obtaining a PhD, and that's what makes a PhD twice as difficult and quite frankly a mockery. Because there is a massive element of luck. Luck of who your supervisor is, who your external and internal examiners are and luck of whether your sup was thinking clearly when writing that bid for funding or whether he/she was on cloud cookoo land that day.

My sup is an old boy, been in academia all his life. He's like a bully in a playground knows everyone and everyone fears him. I have had endless shouting arguments with him, but now I play along with it cos its easier on me and my stress levels. But I do sit quietly and think he would have never lasted 1 day in the real working world. For the love of God, he can't even keep his own budgets updated, let alone manage people.

To let you submit a PhD thesis which had a chance of not being worthy of a PhD is wrong and you should be sacked for it, but who is there to discipline these old guns sitting in their little cosy worlds. Sadly no one.

I really don't know what to suggest, but I fealt I had to write as it hit me hard your story. I for sure for the past three years have been persuading as many people as possible NOT to go near PhDs because its all fortune and talent is meaningless.

Folks who've signed up for x number of years doing post-docs will find this hard to swallow or think themselves lucky, but its true and the stories you hear on here say it all. You don't get forums like this for a Mathematics undergraduate degree or similar.

sorry, I'm on a bit of a role today (bored of writing up).

I fully sympathise with you and reading through the problems some folks are experiencing I wonder whether we're all from the same Uni!

This is my honest opinion and apologise if I offend...

I would not think twice about getting the job. Your examiner and supervisor will not give you a straight answer because its bad news and they don't want to break it to you. A similar thing happened in our dept. and the person had a breakdown. Senior academic cannot cope with emotional people, that's why they are in academia:)

If you can get funding for another year then you have 2 years and maybe (depending on how complex it is) you can turn it round. The problem is if you internal examiner knows, then your external will be told instantly as soon as they meet.

If you have a job lined up then take it, its a get out of jail card. If you were just going to quit and had not back up then that would be silly.

Hope this helps

sorry, I got the quote thing wrong. I have never used this until today.

[quote]Quote From missspacey:


Gaps after a PhD are completely understandable because the transition from a PhD to a job can be difficult (eg you can finish your PhD at a time of year when recruitment is low). You can also fill the gap by extending the dates you worked on your PhD.
quote]

They are understandable, but not desirable. In these times, whoever is employing (there aren't many) are spoilt for choice over possible candidates.

My colleague went for a job in his PhD field and was told 200 other candidates had applied. Now is more important than ever to have a good CV. Even if it means showing that you finished later than you actually did.

Depending on your field Monkey, I'd sign up to a couple of recruitment consultancies and send them your CV. Also word of mouth is amazingly affective, and quite a few jobs (especially post PhD jobs) are known through word of mouth.

Hi,

I'm going to have to disagree with that last comment. Considering the financial difficulties I think you should be looking 6-3 months prior to your submission date. The worst possible thing is a black area on your CV, especially if you only have academic experience and no industry.

It may sound daunting, but the added pressure of a job hunting may structure your day better and make you work more efficiently. Writing up period is one of the worst time wasting periods during a PhD. I find the worst thing is knowing I have a full day of writing up ahead with nothing else to do and then procrastinate the first few hours because I know I have the entire day.